Urban

Thanks for the great article by Timothy Wheeler ("Maryland Port Administration greening an old harbor dumping ground," May 28) about the restoration of Masonville Cove to an urban nature park and bird sanctuary. The Baltimore Community Foundation is proud to have been an early investor in this project through our 2006 support of an outreach coordinator to ensure that there was community input and participation in the project. The terrific result — a cleaner, greener and more vibrant Masonville Cove — highlights what is possible when the community is given the opportunity to exercise its voice in major development projects.

The Potomac River, which flows between Maryland and Virginia, was named the nation's "most endangered" waterway today by a Washington-based environmental group. American Rivers put the Potomac atop its annual list of endangered rivers.  Though cleaner than it used to be, the "nation's river," so named because it flows through Washington, D.C., still faces threats from urban and agricultural pollution, the group says, and from cutbacks being pushed in Congress of federal environmental regulations.

Urban farming guru Will Allen will be in B'more Wednesday (3/7) to speak about sustainable agriculture and the challenges ahead.  Allen, son of a sharecropper and a former professional basketball player with the Baltimore Bullets (now the Wizards), is founder and CEO of Growing Power  Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee.  His efforts have earned him numerous awards and recognition, including a MacArthur "genius" grant in 2008. His lecture and signing of a new book, On the Nature of Food , will be at 12:15 p.m. at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St.  His appearance is sponsored by Hopkins' Center for a Livable Future .

The upcoming weekend is chock-full of green activities. Here are just some: Saturday is "Climate Impacts Day," meaning environmentalists intend to stage a flurry of demonstrations to get people to "connect the dots" between climate change and extreme weather. Folks will be donning gas masks to highlight their concerns during the "cyclovia" bike-walk from Roland Park to Druid Hill Park. Others will be kayaking amid the drowning wetlands at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, while still others plan to celebrate the installation of another solar array in Howard County.

Eric Siegel is on assignment. His column will not appear today.

John Lindner reviews Urban Bar-B-Que in Sandy Spring. That's near Olney, looks like. See if Lindner thinks this barbecue restaurant, the third in a group that also has locaitons in Silver Spring and Rockville, is worth the drive.

On December 26, 2003, MARY A.; beloved wife of the late Joseph A. Urban, Sr.; devoted mother of Joseph A. Urban, Jr. and his fiance Patricia Crow; sister of Hilda Soulsby. Funeral services will be held at the family owned Leonard J. Ruck, Inc., Funeral Home, 5305 Harford Road (at Echodale), on Tuesday at 12 noon. Interment Oak Lawn Cemetery. Friends may call on Monday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M.

Next time you're near Sandy Spring, check out Urban Bar-B-Que, 805 Olney Sandy Spring Road (Highway 108). It's that easy to recommend. If you look the place up online, you may be turned off by the redneck motif. Don't be. Urban's approach tips its hat and decor to that often-derided cohort, but they treat the style gently, with tongue in cheek. Everywhere you look in the dining room, you'll see details paying homage to redneckism. The Elvis painting, the camo hunter's cap, the framed tattoo designs and John Deere are all here.

Keith Urban says he doesn't know why some critics target him. He never claimed to be a country music purist. The floppy-haired country megastar, who won his first Grammy earlier this month for the woeful breakup ballad "You'll Think of Me," has drawn fire from critics of crossover country-pop who think his music strays too far from the genre's roots. "You'll Think of Me" was originally penned for Joe Cocker; the only thing country about it is the twang that Urban added. "The influences I've had in country were more contemporary influences.

Suddenly on April 1, 2003, URBAN P. "Joe" HOHMAN, beloved husband of Nellie Hohman, loving father of Ruth Ann Sluder, Diane Gustafson, Vera Lynn Westervelt, Urban P. Hohman Jr. and Kurt Allen Hohman, step-father of Frank and David Fitzpatrick and Karen Ritenour, loving brother of Alfred Hohman, Rose Krammer and Mary Wayson. Also survived by numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Preceded in death by brothers Edward, Carroll, John, and Bernard Hohman and his sister Ruth Smith.

With spring here, lots of green things to do this weekend. Baltimore Green Week wraps up on Saturday, with a flurry of activities: 8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., there'll be tours and workshops at Real Food Farm , where the group Civic Works is growing produce on six acres in northeast Baltimore's Clifton Park, 2801 St. Lo Drive. Go here or call 410-366-8533 for info. 8 a.m. - 9:30 a.m., there'll be a guided bird-watching walk for all ages through Patterson Park. Led by the Audubon Society's conservation director.

Adam Sahhar spends his days prowling the waters of the Inner Harbor, looking for plunder and teaching passengers a lesson in Pirating 101. As general manager of Baltimore's Urban Pirates, Sahhar, aka Capt. Peppercorn, leads the crew aboard The Fearless, a pirate-themed, children-friendly tour boat armed with water cannons. This is the first week of pirate season, which runs through Oct. 31. Sahhar, a 27-year-old who lives in Fells Point, and the rest of the crew will be on hand for Saturday's Privateer Day in Fells Point.

The Orioles have new orange and black banners along Russell Street and Pratt Street, and aren't they pretty, and aren't they grand, and shouldn't we be grateful? The banners proclaim "20 Years," and we're all supposed to understand and appreciate what that means - two decades since the fabulous, taxpayer-funded Oriole Park opened at Camden Yards. But, who cares? It's been nearly 30 years since the Orioles were in a World Series, 14-soon-15 since they had a winning season. In the Angelos era of Baltimore baseball, pessimism springs eternal in the human breast.

Someone, years ago, planted an oak tree on a narrow, forlorn divider toward the edge of a barren parking lot by a large building near my home. Largely ignored, this lone tree staunchly persevered and sank its roots deep into its diminutive field. It was noticeable, not because of the tree itself, which was just a modest, slight thing, but because of its acorns. They were everywhere - a bumper crop heaped upon the ground, where one had to tread carefully to keep one's feet firmly planted.

Spring has been arriving earlier in recent years, but it's especially early for urban dwellers, new research shows. According to a study published in the February issue of the journal Global Change Biology , the growing season is two to three weeks longer in cities in the Chesapeake Bay region than it is in the exurbs.  After analyzing 25 years' worth of high-resolution satellite images of the mid-Atlantic region, researchers with...

Urban farming guru Will Allen will be in B'more Wednesday (3/7) to speak about sustainable agriculture and the challenges ahead.  Allen, son of a sharecropper and a former professional basketball player with the Baltimore Bullets (now the Wizards), is founder and CEO of Growing Power  Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee.  His efforts have earned him numerous awards and recognition, including a MacArthur "genius" grant in 2008. His lecture and signing of a new book, On the Nature of Food , will be at 12:15 p.m. at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St.  His appearance is sponsored by Hopkins' Center for a Livable Future .

On Monday January 26, 2004 URBAN E., beloved husband of the late Anna Mae (nee White); devoted father of Urban E. Leimkuhler Jr., William F., James H., Gerard F. Leimkuhler, Angela Moran and Mark J. Leimkuhler; dear brother of William "Joe" Leimkuhler of Philadelphia, Edwin Leimkuhler of Baltimore, Ferdinand Leimkuhler of Berkley, CA, Rose Marie Cannon of South Carolina and the late Mary Lou Mooney. Also survived by nine grandchildren. Friends may call at the Sterling-Ashton-Schwab Funeral Home Inc, 736 Edmondson Ave (1/2 mile west of beltway exit 14)

William J. Urban, founder, publisher and editor of theBaltimore Alternative, a gay newspaper, died yesterday of complications to AIDS. He was 37.Mr. Urban had battled AIDS for almost six years. In the years since his diagnosis, he chronicled his experiences with the illness in articles appearing in community publications on the Eastern Shore, where he was raised, as well as in his own newspaper.He was born in Lancaster, Pa. He graduated from Kent High School in Worton in 1973 and attended several colleges and universities, including the University of California at Santa Barbara and, in Baltimore, Loyola College and Coppin State College.

If Baltimore MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blakewants to attract 10,000 new families to the city over the next decade, she could do a lot worse than to plant more trees. Trees make a city more beautiful, and Baltimore is blessed with an abundance of them. But as with so many things having to do with efforts to turn around this town's gritty image, more is always better. Across the country, cities have been steadily losing the gracious, old-growth trees that once made them inviting places to live and work.

Trees are losing ground to pavement in many U.S. cities, Baltimore included, according to a new federal study. Tree cover in urban areas is declining at a rate of about 4 million trees per year, according to a U.S. Forest Service study published recently in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening .  Researchers at the Forest Service's Northern Research Station used satellite imagery to determine that 17 of the 20 cities analyzed...